Complete Works (271 page)

And now indeed, it seems, we have all but completed our initial assignment, [e] that of tracing the history of the universe down to the emergence of humankind. We should go on to mention briefly how the other living things came to be—a topic that won’t require many words. By doing this we’ll seem to be in better measure with ourselves so far as our words on these subjects are concerned.

Let us proceed, then, to a discussion of this subject in the following way. According to our likely account, all male-born humans who lived lives of cowardice or injustice were reborn in the second generation as women. And this explains why at that time the gods fashioned the desire for sexual
[91]
union, by constructing one ensouled living thing in us as well as another one in women. This is how they made them in each case: There is [in a man] a passage by which fluids exit from the body, where it receives the liquid that has passed through the lungs down into the kidneys and on into the bladder and expels it under pressure of air. From this passage they bored a connecting one into the compacted marrow that runs from the head along the neck through the spine. This is in fact the marrow that [b] we have previously called “seed.”
⁴⁵
Now because it has soul in it and had now found a vent [to the outside], this marrow instilled a life-giving desire for emission right at the place of venting, and so produced the love of procreation. This is why, of course, the male genitals are unruly and self-willed, like an animal that will not be subject to reason and, driven crazy by its desires, seeks to overpower everything else. The very same causes [c] operate in women. A woman’s womb or uterus, as it is called, is a living thing within her with a desire for childbearing. Now when this remains unfruitful for an unseasonably long period of time, it is extremely frustrated and travels everywhere up and down her body. It blocks up her respiratory passages, and by not allowing her to breathe it throws her into extreme emergencies, and visits all sorts of other illnesses upon her until finally [d] the woman’s desire and the man’s love bring them together, and, like plucking the fruit from a tree, they sow the seed into the ploughed field of her womb, living things too small to be visible and still without form. And when they have again given them distinct form, they nourish these living things so that they can mature inside the womb. Afterwards, they bring them to birth, introducing them into the light of day.

That is how women and females in general came to be. As for birds, as a kind they are the products of a transformation. They grow feathers instead of hair. They descended from innocent but simpleminded men, [e] men who studied the heavenly bodies but in their naiveté believed that the most reliable proofs concerning them could be based upon visual observation. Land animals in the wild, moreover, came from men who had no tincture of philosophy and who made no study of the universe whatsoever, because they no longer made use of the revolutions in their heads but instead followed the lead of the parts of the soul that reside in the chest. As a consequence of these ways of theirs they carried their forelimbs and their heads dragging towards the ground, like towards like. The tops of their heads became elongated and took all sorts of shapes,
[92]
depending on the particular way the revolutions were squeezed together from lack of use. This is the reason animals of this kind have four or more feet. The god placed a greater number of supports under the more mindless beings, so that they might be drawn more closely to the ground. As for the most mindless of these animals, the ones whose entire bodies stretch out completely along the ground, the gods made them without feet, crawling [b] along the ground, there being no need of feet anymore. The fourth kind of animal, the kind that lives in water, came from those men who were without question the most stupid and ignorant of all. The gods who brought about their transformation concluded that these no longer deserved to breathe pure air, because their souls were tainted with transgressions of every sort. Instead of letting them breathe rare and pure air, they shoved them into water to breathe its murky depths. This is the origin of fish, of all shellfish, and of every water-inhabiting animal. Their justly due reward for their extreme stupidity is their extreme dwelling place. [c] These, then, are the conditions that govern, both then and now, how all the animals exchange their forms, one for the other, and in the process lose or gain intelligence or folly.

And so now we may say that our account of the universe has reached its conclusion. This world of ours has received and teems with living things, mortal and immortal. A visible living thing containing visible ones, perceptible god, image of the intelligible Living Thing,
⁴⁶
its grandness, goodness, beauty and perfection are unexcelled. Our one universe, indeed the only one of its kind, has come to be.

1
. The goddess is Athena, patron deity of Athens; the conversation is presumably taking place at the celebration of the Panathenaic Festival in Athens.

2
. The Apaturia was celebrated in Athens in October–November of each year. The presentation of children took place on the third day.

3
. The strait of Gibraltar.

4
. South of the Mediterranean the empire extended across North Africa to the western frontier of Egypt. To the north it included Europe as far east as central Italy.

5
. Reading
kata bracheos
in d5.

6
. Reading
ei gegonen
ē
kai agenes estin
in c5.

7
. Omitting
aei
in a1.

8
. “Becoming” and “coming to be” here as elsewhere translate the same Greek word,
genesis
, and its cognates; the Greek word does not say, as English “comes to be” does, that once a thing has come to be, it now
is
, or has
being
.

9
. Greek
d
ē
miourgos
, also sometimes translated below as “maker” (40c2, 41a7) or “fashioner” (69c3)—whence the divine “Demiurge” one reads about in accounts of the
Timaeus
.

10
.
Ouranos
, i.e., “heaven.”

11
. “Solids” are cubes (e.g., 2 × 2 × 2, or 8).

12
. A simple example of a proportionate progression that satisfies Plato’s requirements in 32a might be that of 2, 4, 8. So: 2:4::4:8 (the first term is to the middle what the middle is to the last, the last term is to the middle what the middle is to the first); 4:2::8:4 or 4:8::2:4 (the middle term turns out to be first and last and the first and last terms turn out to be middles). Since, however, the body of the world is three-dimensional, its components must be represented by “solid” numbers (see previous note). This will require two middle terms.

13
. Compare
Gorgias
508a: “… Wise men claim that partnership and friendship … hold together heaven and earth … and that is why they call this universe a
world-order
…”

14
. In order to establish in the soul, through connected geometrical proportions, the source of the harmonious order it needs to impart to the three-dimensional body of the world, and in particular to the heaven and the bodies it contains.

15
. The outer band is the circle responsible for the constant daily rotation of the fixed stars—hence for the “movement of
the Same
.” The inner band is the circle responsible for contrary movements in the Zodiac of the seven “wandering” stars (moon and sun, plus the five planets known to the ancients)—hence for the “movements of
the Different.
”

16
. These circles or bands are the ones responsible for the individual movements in the Zodiac respectively of moon, sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the seven “wanderers” (see 38c–d). The sun, Venus, and Mercury are the three mentioned just below as going “at the same speed” (see 38d).

17
. Reading
iousan … kratoumen
ē
n
in a1–2.

18
. Accepting the emendation
kath’ha
in b3.

19
. These are the fixed stars, i.e., those other than the moon, sun, and planets, which have already been created (cf. below, 40b).

20
. Accepting the emendation
thei
ō
n
and the supplement <
ta
> before
di’ emou
in a7.

21
. Timaeus is here describing the uncontrolled movements of a new-born animal. He goes on to describe the confusion produced in its soul by its first sensations.

22
. It is not clear what etymological point involving the word
aisth
ē
seis
(sensations) Plato wants to make here. Perhaps he thinks (incorrectly) that
aisth
ē
sis
is etymologically related to
aïssein
, “to shake.”

23
. See 36b above.

24
. A near-quotation from Euripides,
Phoenician Women,
1762.

25
. Reading
ph
ō
n
ē
s
in d1.

26
. Accepting the insertion of <
t
ō
n
> after
mallon de
in d3.

27
. An alternative translation of 49c7–50a4 has been proposed by H. F. Cherniss (
Am. J. of Philol.
75, 113 ff.):

Since these thus never appear as severally identical, concerning which of them could one without shame firmly assert that this is any particular thing and not another? It is not possible, but by far the safest way is to speak of them on this basis: What we ever see coming to be at different times in different places, for example fire, not to say “this is fire,” but “what on any occasion is such and such is fire,” nor “this is water,” but “what is always such and such is water,” nor ever “[this],” as if it had some permanence, “is some other” of the things that we think we are designating as something when by way of pointing we use the term “this” or “that.” For it slips away and does not abide the assertion of “that” and “this” or any assertion that indicts them of being stable. But [it is safest] not to speak of these as severally distinct but so to call the such and such that always recurs alike in each and all cases together, for example [to call] that which is always such and such fire, and so with everything that comes to be; and, on the other hand, that in which these severally distinct characteristics are ever and anon being manifested as they come to be in it and out of which again they are passing away, it is safest to designate it alone when we employ the word “this” or “that” but what is of any kind soever, hot or white or any of the contraries and all that consist of these, not in turn to call it any of these.

28
. Accepting the insertion of
no
ē
t
ō
n
before
pant
ō
n
in a1.

29
. Cf. 49b–c.

30
. The solid angle is the conjunction of three 60° plane angles, totalling 180°.

31
. The dodecahedron, the remaining one of the regular solids. It approaches most nearly a sphere in volume—the shape of the universe, on Timaeus’ story.

32
. The reference is unclear. Cf. perhaps 52e.

33
. I.e., glass, wax, and similar bodies; see below.

34
. Accepting the conjecture
hud
ō
r
at b5.

35
. At 45c.

36
. See 45b–d.

37
. Cf. 31b–32c and 48b, 48e–49a, respectively.

38
. Cf. 61c.

39
. Cf. 43a ff.

40
. See below, 90e–92c.

41
. The word for living things here,
z
ō
a
(which is often appropriately translated “animals”), is cognate with Timaeus’ word for “life.” His point is that because plants have “life” (
z
ē
n
), they are appropriately called
z
ō
a,
even though they are not animals.

42
. As 79c–e seems to show, Timaeus appears to envisage the “shell” as an envelope of air surrounding the exterior of the torso, being drawn through the interstices of the body into the interior and then pushed out again, as breathing takes place.

43
. Reading
au to ex ekein
ō
n hama kai neur
ō
n
in a2.

44
. See 43a–44a.

45
. At 73c1; 74a4.

46
. Cf. 30c, d and 39e.

CRITIAS

Translated by Diskin Clay.

At the beginning of
Timaeus,
Socrates, Critias, Timaeus, and Hermocrates agree to an exchange of speeches. For the entertainment of the others on the previous day, Socrates had explained the institutions of the
Republic
’s ideal city. But a truly satisfying account of their excellence would require more than that ‘theoretical’ description: we need to see them fully in effect, functioning in a city’s actual life—especially in wartime, the most severe test of a city’s mettle. Critias (an Athenian) offers to do this, on the supposition that the Athens of nine thousand years before was governed by the institutions of Socrates’ city, as a myth from Egypt that he has heard recited has suggested to him. (This Critias is either Plato’s mother’s cousin—the Critias of
Charmides, Protagoras,
and
Eryxias
—
or that cousin’s grandfather.) He will tell the tale of ancient Athens’ war with the inhabitants of Atlantis, an island then located in the Atlantic Ocean near the entrance to the Mediterranean sea. Under their kings, the technologically advanced Atlantids had conquered Europe as far as Italy, and Africa up to the border of Egypt, and it fell to the freedom-loving, well-governed Athenians to defeat these interlopers and save the Mediterranean peoples from outside domination. At the successful conclusion of the war, Atlantis itself was destroyed in an earthquake and sank into the sea, carrying its inhabitants and all the warriors of Athens—its adult male population—to their deaths.